Copyright yardbarker
Prior to the 2024 season, the White Sox hired Walker McKinven to be Will Venable’s bench coach. He was previously in Milwaukee as their Run Prevention Coordinator, in which he worked with all fielders to improve their defense, especially catchers. In Milwaukee, McKinven and company turned William Contreras from 15th percentile framing numbers in 2022, when he was with the Braves, to 93rd percentile in 2023. If Quero and Teel have a full offseason to work with McKinven and other coaches, I think we can expect some improvement from both. Additionally, catchers can just take a bit longer to adjust behind the plate. Blue Jays backstop Alejandro Kirk didn’t post a season with positive framing runs until 2022, his third year in the league. From 2022 and beyond, Kirk ranks second in the league in framing runs, only Giants defensive wizard Patrick Bailey sits higher. Now, I’m not saying to go into 2026 with the expectation of Quero and Teel to mirror Contreras and Kirk, but I’d be pretty surprised if both of them didn’t have better seasons than this year. But the way to have both of them improve is to get both of them innings behind the plate, which is going to be tricky to navigate. Utilization of Both Kyle Teel played some left field in college (and one inning in MLB this year), so some White Sox fans might sentence him to an outfield role, but I don’t think the trigger should be that quick. Teel was the better framer of the two, and seemed to work better with pitchers. That’s not a knock to Quero, just observing what happened in games. But if you go forward with the idea of both developing as catchers, how does that work? Split it 81 games down the middle?
